Data licensing terms, in plain English

Data license

Permission to use a copy of records under agreed terms, for a fee, while the owner keeps the originals. The structure every buyer in this market uses.

Non-exclusive license

A license that leaves the owner free to license the same records to others. Can be repeated. The default in this market.

Exclusive license

A license where the buyer is the only one allowed to use the records, for a term or forever. Pays roughly 4 to 5 times more, per one platform's published multiple, and ends the asset.

De-identification

Removing or replacing anything that identifies a person: names, emails, phone numbers, account numbers, addresses. Done by the buyer before any use. Healthcare has a defined HIPAA standard for it.

Tokenization

Replacing a name or identifier with a consistent placeholder (Customer 4471) so the record still makes sense without revealing who it was.

Scrubbing

The everyday word for de-identification plus removal of secrets, card data, health data and anything the owner excluded.

Operating data

Records of how a company does its work: tickets, jobs, files, pipelines, closes, code, messages. The asset buyers pay for. Not the customer list.

Linked work trail

A piece of work recorded across several systems: the ticket, the chat thread, the code change, the invoice. Buyers pay more for the chain than for its parts.

Training environment

A rebuilt replica of a company's systems and records where an AI model practices doing the job. Some buyers call them gyms; others call them digital twins.

RL environment

Reinforcement learning environment. The technical name for a training environment: the model acts, is scored, and improves.

Rights-cleared

Records the owner has confirmed it may license: owned outright, not restricted by customer contracts, with contractor work assigned. Buyers price unclear rights at zero.

IP assignment

A signed agreement in which a contractor or employee transfers ownership of their work to the company. Missing assignments are the most common reason a code deal stalls.

MSA

Master service agreement. The main contract with a customer. The place to look for clauses that restrict secondary use of data.

DPA

Data processing agreement. An add-on to a customer contract that governs how customer data is handled. Often forbids secondary use; records under one are excluded.

Secondary use

Using data for something other than the purpose it was collected for. Licensing for AI training is a secondary use, which is why contracts and privacy law matter.

PII

Personally identifiable information. Names, emails, phone numbers, addresses, ID numbers. Removed before any use.

PHI

Protected health information under HIPAA. Excluded entirely from this market; only administrative process data is licensed, and slowly.

NPI

Nonpublic personal information under GLBA, the law covering lenders. Borrower identifiers are removed before anything is shared.

Privilege

Attorney-client privilege. Communications that a court cannot compel. Excluded or handled under a written protocol in any law-firm deal.

Provenance

The documented origin of a dataset: who created it, who owned it, how rights were cleared. Buyers require it; it is what makes licensed data worth more than scraped data.

Referral fee

What a buyer pays the person who introduced a company that signs. Paid by the buyer, never by the owner, and never deducted from the owner's offer.

First introduction

Several buyers credit only the first person to introduce a company. Later introductions are void. The reason speed matters.

Tracked link

One enterprise buyer credits a referral only if the company applies through the referrer's unique link. No credit after the fact.

Success fee

A fee taken from the proceeds of a sale. One buyer built for small operators charges 15% to 40% of the sale for doing the whole job; no sale, no fee. The enterprise buyers do not charge the owner anything.

Data acceptance

The point at which a buyer has reviewed the exported records and confirmed they meet the agreement. Several buyers pay at acceptance.

Mirror clone

A full copy of a code repository including every branch, tag and commit. The export buyers want. A snapshot without history is close to worthless.

Snapshot

A copy of code or files at one moment, without history. Low value.

Retention policy

A setting that deletes old messages or records automatically. Pause it; years of history are the asset.

Data broker

A legal term in California, Vermont, Texas and Oregon for a business that sells personal information about people it has no direct relationship with. Requires registration. Licensing your own de-identified operating records is not data brokering, and neither is introducing companies to buyers.

Compounding loop

One enterprise buyer's phrase for recurring data partnerships: the company is paid again as it produces new records.

Briggs AnalyticsWe introduce business owners to the buyers that license company records. We never see your data. Philadelphia, PA.